Before I read Celerity's post, I'd like to point out that at least Bounties were changed recently. The only part about it that still made me wonder why, was that the bag still goes to the person who bountied them and not the Hunter which is what I gathered from reading it. Bounties in my own eyes were always more of a RP standpoint and less of a status to try and full loot someone by continually bountying them. By this I mean I don't think the bountier should get anything from it other than the fact that they were killed and MAYBE even their head, but not any of their wares. Syndicate members may have busted their ass to try and get the kill, and often times push themselves almost to the point of death and in some cases even death that didn't result in the end of the intended target.
Everyone says that WM is the newbie Cabal to PK because it ends up typically in a stun. I myself have always viewed that those within Syndicate should also be inducted to get a different perspective of things. It allows them to have a wider array of PK than that of WM because it will result in death. It gives you more of an idea of how others run or chase, so if you've nearly got them killed, you recognize their patterns easier that benefits you more in tactics. A WM challenge on the other hand typically takes place in one area though and it has 0 meaning in terms of a real PK. Sure you can say Barbarians could do the same thing, but honestly I'd rather have Syndicate skills in a real PK and not Barbarians since it usually favors very specific classes where as Syndicate favors most, if not all that are allowed to join.
I've always said they are the hired gun of sorts to which F0xx said was very narrow minded in my statement of such. But look at pretty much a majority of those who play them. There's nothing stopping them from extorting gold from others who are bountied, especially if the person knows they could be easily killed by them. In fact that to me would be a better spin to it than just collecting. People have some preconceived notions that if you're a Hunter that you need to collect bounties. From my stand point I'd rather see 0 kills and someone with an actual life to them than someone who only goes after bounties 24/7. Sure you wont be promoted to T possibly ever depending on who's in charge of the Cabal, but you can gain a lot more through RP than you can through the PK. If that's all you do, everyone logs off. If they know you're willing to work with them, chances are you'd end up with more gold or other beneficial benefits than if you were to just outright kill them the first time you see them.
People bounty others for ultimately stupid reasons though anymore. I understand if that's your RP if you're established, but randomly doing so just for the sake of pleasing a Syndicate because they're "bored" is ridiculous. Nothing is stopping the Evils within in killing others and if they are Evil and you're Good even without a bounty I'd expect it. I've had it happen several times in fact. If you're a Neutral, take a damned trip with someone and explore or RP with others and see who they really are. If they're logging off every time they have a bounty because that's all you're ever attempting, have fun being the only 50 on, or being chased by people who are guaranteed to beat you repeatedly since that's really all a majority of who is on the board that stays there for longer periods of time.
I understand that if you're in an alliance with Syndicate that you're expected to contribute to the bounty board because that's what everyone within really wants, but that should never come from the Merchant side of things either. Soliciting offers for bounties is ridiculous, if the game is boring for you to sit around doing nothing, you're playing it wrong. I've spent 11 hours online straight once and I honestly thought it was about 6 because of the interactions I had with others. I've also seen non bounty bounties before being done which is far more interesting than the actual board because it skipped the middle man. X amount of money on someone's head that all of it goes directly to the Hunter or whoever took it without ever needing to actually use the bounty board. Far more interesting, and the gold usually ends up being more than what people place on others head and it's driven by RP because they disrespected someone to want to place said bounty.
Ultimately though it seems we're moving in the right direction with bounties in the coding of such recently. It wasn't exactly as high as I had proposed on several occasions, but I'll take the halfway mark over nothing any day. Nothing is really stopping you from being bountied though, and I find it funny that many of my own characters often have a bounty placed after I hit 50, and even at level 40 sometimes. Just remember though that if you default on your loans from a Merchant or a Merchant MOB, you typically are placed on there automatically from what I've seen. Such was the case a couple months ago because someone took a loan out from the MOB and never repaid it which resulted in a level 30 being #1 on the bounty board for a little while. Bounties suck a majority of the time though. You're either extremely under powered because you're just hitting 50, or they're facing a very difficult battle. On the flip side of that though, when there are no Syndicate members at all, bounties aren't really a bother most of the time. Even with the ones we do have now they still find difficulty in some of them. The higher priced bounties are typically always people you don't have much of a chance with and the ones you do were probably bountied due to RP reasons. The lower priced bounties were always a slap in the face though. Down the road I expect everything will eventually be better for everyone, but nothing prevents the Syndicate from RPing a way NOT to PK. It just takes someone with the balls enough to actually step in that direction to make it work overall.